Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris by Tim Willocks

a determined display of the decadence for which the court was famed. Women of outstanding beauty and high station, perhaps in an attempt to raise morale, displayed their tits for the languid gentlemen who sprawled about the furniture, several of whom wore silver cages hung about their necks in which they carried miniature dogs. While a handsome young footman served a reviving cordial, one of the gentlemen stroked the former’s crotch bulge with a tongue-moistened forefinger, to a chorus of titters and squeals. The footman bore this ordeal with admirable stoicism and of the cordial he did not spill a drop. The smell of urine lingered everywhere.
    ‘To a provincial this must seem a paradise,’ said Arnauld, ‘but what you are seeing is an intense struggle to conquer the pyramid of precedence. The ambitious are constantly developing elaborate manoeuvres, either to establish superiority or to undermine rivals, which latter are in endless supply. It may look gay but there is little real enjoyment, rather a perpetual commerce in suspicion, jealousy and spite. I doubt you would do very well here, but that you may take as a compliment.’
    As they passed from one wing to another, Tannhauser saw a woman topped with a mass of golden curls hoist up the skirts of her blue silk dress, the pearls on which alone must have cost the price of a modest farm. She squatted over a mound of human faeces piled beneath a staircase.
    ‘What am I seeing now?’ he asked. ‘An elaborate manoeuvre to establish her superiority? Or her intense struggle to conquer the pyramid of precedence?’
    ‘That is why the court has to move every month from one palace to another,’ tutted Arnauld. ‘The stench becomes intolerable and the building has to be aired for fear of the plague.’
    ‘And what do the midget dogs in cages signify?’
    ‘One expects the centre of power to attract the dishonest, the greedy, the venal, the vain and even the wicked,’ admitted Arnauld. ‘It would be a shabby little court that did not. The elite must be allowed their privileges or what is the point? What is so dispiriting is that nine out of ten courtiers are also stupid, ignorant, talentless and scared. In every respect, except perhaps physical beauty, they are mediocrities. Yet they prosper.’
    Swiss and French Guard were stationed so that every room and corridor was watched. Ranks of Swiss steel walled off certain stairways and entrances all together. The apartments of the royal family stood above. They left the
Pavillon du Roi
through a grandiose portico.
    A huge courtyard opened out before them, perhaps a hundred paces square. It was walled in by buildings old, new, demolished and half-complete. The north and east wings were ancient, and unlike the new to the south and west, which were created to satisfy the vices of degenerates, the old Louvre was built to be a fortress. Its three conical towers rose above the courtyard’s angles at all but the south-west corner. The courtyard swarmed with armed Huguenots.
    Most of them were young and milled in truculent cliques. Some affected a silence suggesting righteous anger straining at the end of its tether. Others held vehement debates. Some, probably drunk, yelled insults and threats at the windows of the royal apartments. A handful wore armour. The white cross on Tannhauser’s chest marked him out as someone worthy of their scorn. Some had already noticed him and were pointing him out to their fellows.
    Tannhauser said, ‘Where are the Swiss Guard?’
    ‘His Majesty has posted them indoors, for fear of further inflaming high passions.’
    ‘Where do we go next?’
    ‘The office of the
Plaisirs du Roi
, where we’ll find Picart, is in the North Wing.’ Arnauld stared across the courtyard as if wishing for an underground tunnel. ‘Unless this fury passes we will witness some terrible madness. Don’t these fanatics understand? The King is the best friend they’ve got.’
    ‘Perhaps not for much